Roumania Past and Present eBook

The Wallacho-Bulgarian Empire lasted, according
to different authors, from sixty to one hundred years,
and contemporaneously with it the Kumani were
also dominant in part of ancient Dacia; indeed, according
to some writers, Trajan’s Dacia was called the
land of the Kumani. The information concerning
the latter is very scanty. One writer says that
as the ‘Uzi’ they were found on the banks
of the Danube at the end of the eleventh century;
others say they entered Moldo-Wallachia about 1046.
About 1089 they are spoken of as in Transylvania, and
the period of their domination is variously stated
as between these dates and 1220-1246. They were
probably converted to Christianity about 1220-1223.
About that time the tribe was broken up, and part of
them wandered into Hungary, where they are said to
have been guilty of great cruelties, and to have subsisted
down to the fifteenth century.

During the same period also (1200) the order of Teutonic
Knights had lands allotted to them in Transylvania
by Andreas II. of Hungary, as well as in part of Wallachia,
over which he claimed the sovereignty; but they sought
to free themselves from his control, and the gift was
soon withdrawn, and in 1224 they were compelled to
leave the territory over which they had exercised
jurisdiction. About 1247—­1250 the Knights
of St. John also enjoyed a brief authority in
some parts of Transylvania and Wallachia.

The most interesting incident, of which the account
has been handed down to us, in the Wallacho-Bulgarian
regime was the negotiation between King Joannitz,
one of the first rulers (to whom reference has already
been made), and Pope Innocent III. (1198-1216).

Lauriani published the whole correspondence, which
is so interesting that a brief epitome of it will
not be out of place here. It not only throws
light upon the historical events of the period, but
also gives us a glimpse of the proceedings connected
with the schism in the Catholic Church. It is
only necessary to premise that in the separation between
the Roman and Greek Catholics which took place in the
latter half of the ninth century, the Danubian provinces
followed the eastern section, that the union was complete
under Basilius, but that, when the brothers Asan shook
off the Byzantine yoke, there was a national feeling
of antagonism in religion arising out of the political
rupture. Of this Innocent took advantage, and
in sending a nuncio to Joannitz he wrote him that God
had seen the humility with which he had deported himself
towards the Roman Church, and in the turmoil and dangers
of warfare He had not alone mightily protected him,
but also in his mercy had greatly enlarged him (dilatavit).
‘We, however,’ he said, ’when we
heard that thy forefathers sprang from the noble city
of Rome, and that thou didst not only inherit the
nobility of their race, but also true humility towards
the Apostolic chair, had contemplated ere this to address